JOHN PHILLIP ABBOTT, BETH CAMPBELL, KATRHYN REFI and KEN WEATHERSBY
Off the Grid
Gallery 2
12 June – 12 July 2015
Extended through 2 August
Opening Reception: Fri, 12 June. 7-9pm
Press Release
Whereas Mark Reynolds builds his drawings from principles of geometry and mathematics, each of these four artists incorporate geometric elements in their work, hinting at the grid but veering off in imprecise and idiosyncratic directions. John Phillip Abbott develops the font for his text paintings in a loosely based grid format, using spray paint, and stencil techniques and, for the paintings in this exhibition, strips of wood glued to the canvas surface. Beth Campbell’s “Potential Future Drawings” series, and her related mobile sculptures (one of which will be included in this exhibition), exhibit sequenced series of choices and possibilities, expanding exponentially. In her “Every Word I Spoke” drawing series, Kathryn Refi deconstructs words that she spoke on a particular day into color-coded grids corresponding to the words and letters, turning language into an imprecise grid. The off-kilter geometric forms in Ken Weathersby’s paintings suggest a precision that is not quite there. One painting included in this exhibition, “220 (tns),” consists of a wooden latticework placed in front of a collaged canvas. In another, “205,” irregular rectangles of wood crowd into the edges of a bi-color painted grid.
John Phillip Abbott lives and works in Silver City, New Mexico. He studied at the Santa Reparata School of Art in Florence, Italy and the University of Wisconsin. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions in the US and elsewhere. Beth Campbell lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, The Drawing Room, London, the Tang Museum, and included in PS1’s “Greater New York.” She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2011), a Louis Comfort Tiffany Memorial Fellowship (2009), among others. Kathryn Refi lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received an MFA from the University of Georgia and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore). Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, and elsewhere. Ken Weathersby lives and works in New Jersey. He received an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from the University of Southern Mississippi. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions and is currently on view in an exhibition traveling in Leiden, the Netherlands, Athens, Greece, and Nashville, TN.